Finally a Run outside!

 Greetings all,

I had a good run outside on Friday, since it was near 40 degrees and really with no wind out there it felt great. I was curious on how it was going to go for my first run outside, as well as my first run on my new medications. 

In the past, my medications for at first depression, and now more for anxiety, created a lot of wild side effects.  I've had everything from feeling like I need to run to a bathroom in the middle of a run, to seeing my skin turn purple and feel tingly as I'm running.  Trying to run at harder, race-like levels can really be a mess when your drugs are kicking in and sensing high stress, forcing your body to affect your blood pressure and heart rates.  It can even affect your digestive system and cause excess serotonin to start going straight to your small intestine and causing issues there. 

On my prior medication the last three years, I had to adjust my runs to a run/walk method to help my body lower my heart rate during the walk breaks.  I would typically do 1-2 minutes of running with 1 minute walk breaks.  A couple staple workouts I'd do for time and effort was 1:30 run, 1:00 walk x 8 for 20 minutes total, or 2 minutes run, 1 minute walk x 8 for a 24 minute workout.  With a GPS watch on, I was able to get close to my old 5K race paces on the runs, and the walk breaks helped me recover a bit to do another round over and over. 

Friday's routine was starting out with 1:30 run, 1:00 walk x 4, then turn around and go back at 3 minutes run, 1 minute walk x 2, and a final 1 minute run, 1 minute walk to finish and cool down at the end.  The final 10 minutes of 3/1, 3/1 and 1/1 gave me a good indication of how long I can try and keep going and perhaps add more run time and keep the rest time the same.  As it gets warmer and warmer, I can experiment more with this.  On the bright side, after two weeks of the new medication, I'm not really feeling side effects from it while exercising.  I was told this new one is more suited for active people, so I hope this is the case with me.